The Masque Of Apathy

For Matt Panesh, with apologies to Percy.

As I splumped upon my couch,

Scrabbling through tobacco pouch,

There came a voice upon the air

That told a vision of “Out There”.

I saw Greed upon the run,

He had a mask like Cameron.

Very smooth he looked, yet spastic -

With his forehead made of plastic.

From his smile, so fixed and fickle,

There escaped an oily trickle

As with his fist, so fast and hard,

He crammed his pudgy cheeks with lard.

Next came Falsehood, and his eyes

Were yellow, like Vince Cable's ties.

In his arms, a white lamb trembled -

He wrung its neck as he dissembled.

Thronged with lackeys and fat cats

Wearing Artful Dodger hats,

With Osborne's gleam upon his eye,

Cronyism next rode by.

And many more Infractions played

This pleonectic masquerade-

Dressed in suits like brazen gangsters;

Or Lawyers, Priests, and Merchant Bankers.

Last, Apathy, with empty sockets,

iPod on, and hands in pockets,

Slouching like some languid goth,

Arrived upon a Three-Toed Sloth,

And scrawled upon his sullen head,

A faded tattoo could be read:

In childish handwriting, it said

“I'D RATHER BE AT HOME IN BED”.

A crowd arrived in Sta-Prest trousers,

Nike shoes and Primark blouses,

Gathered there, all al fresco,

Laden down with bags from Tesco.

With cringing cheers and servile scrapes -

Like backward kids, or maybe apes -

They hailed their monarch, Apathy,

With sycophantic flattery:

“Mighty Lord, the day is Thine!

To you we give our Life and Time!

Since we don't want to use our brains,

We paved the way for you to reign!

“Tell us of the latest fashions!

Give us Wants instead of Passions!

Turn us into passive clones,

With credit cards and payday loans,

PS3s and mobile phones!

“We, the people, now rejoice!

Exulting you with single voice:

Apathy, to Thee we bow!

Can we go watch Big Brother now?”

Then Apathy, like one who's drugged,

Could barely move, so simply shrugged -

And with a flick of weary digit,

Dismissed the crowd, the pageant with it.

Those foul personifications went

To London, to the Parliament,

Where with careless, strident whistles

They swapped the schools for Trident missiles.

They flogged the forests, bought the press,

Raised a tax to line their nests,

And then one final sickly jest:

Dismantled all the NHS.

The crowd cared not when they were told

The hospitals had all been sold:

“It seems like effort, starting fights -

Midsomer Murder's on tonight!

“Oh, let it lie. Yes, leave it be,

Too complex for the likes of me!

I'm sure those politicians know

What they're doing. Or I hope so.

“I voted for that nice man, Clegg:

He'd never let me starve or beg!

He swore to fight for liberty!

Now let's just have a cup of tea,

“Forget the politics and worry -

I'll microwave us all a curry!”

With processed food inside their bellies,

(Such paltry fare, like on their tellies,)

They chained themselves to hollow screens,

Were hypnotised by hollow dreams.

Sedated on that couch from Sweden,

They sat and snoozed away their freedoms

And while they died in living rooms,

Two remained out in the gloom.

One was Hope – she looked forlorn,

As if somehow her heart were torn,

The other, Wisdom, shook his head,

And in a weary voice, he said:

“I really don't know what to do-

They are many, we are few.

“At times like this, one might get jaded,”

And with that, 
                                 the vision faded...

Come And See (My World Cup Bid)

Dear Sepp Blatter and associated FIFA bigwigs, liggers, and cronies,

England is a perfect venue for the World Cup! I hereby officially invite you to come and see for yourself.

Come and see the country where millions of grown men pay thousands of pounds to watch lithe young men in short little shorts parade their five hundred pound haircuts and inability to remain upright after the slightest of contact, and paediatricians are attacked in the street.

Come and see the country where everyone can name Man U's starting eleven, but nobody can name 10 MPs.

Come and see the country that loves foreigners , but only if they've got a solid left foot and a healthy streak of arrogance and greed. Otherwise “Fuck off outta here, Abdul, the country's full”.

Come and see the country where footballers are paid more than novelists. This isn't sour grapes because Wayne Rooney earns in 90 minutes what I earn in a year – I have no desire to be a footballer, as I like my girlfriend to have a brain. And I don't wanna have to share her with my workmates later in a hotel room in North London.

Come and see the country where we're told we have talent while a grinning shitsack of tanned botox pumps insipid ball-less guff unbidden into our ears and our national team can't even beat a nation that doesn't know the rules.

Come and see the country where my mates think talking about football is more important than listening to drunken me hold court.

Come and see the country where footballers can get away with rape and a man who tells the truth gets accused of it.

Come and see the country where neighbours will murder each other over a parking space, despite apparently believing that putting your hazards on means you can park anywhere you damn well please.

Come and see the country that fires scientists, but welcomes with open arms a bigoted, AIDS-spreading, hate-mongering purveyor of fatuous fairy-tales called the Pope.

Come and see the country where “You watch where I'm going” is an acceptable substitute for personal responsibility.

 

Come and see the country where Alan Carr is allowed to call himself a comedian.

Come and see the country where kids can spray graffiti but not spell it.

Come and see the country that thinks copying America is a viable long-term strategy.

Come and see the country that never makes a fuss, but thinks the French are lazy.

Come and see the country where people are angrier at me for not voting than they are at the politicians they voted for lying their asses off to get elected. “Well, if you didn't vote, you can't complain!” Really? Watch me. I didn't vote in X-Factor either, but I still know Jedward are cunts.

Come and see the country where politicians think that duck moats and a university education are the same thing – they're both fine, as long as you pay the money back afterwards. No! They're not the same thing – one is you stealing money from us for something frivolous, vainglorious, and dumb, the other is you selling other people's children's future's down the river to line the pockets of your mates, saying “Yes, we'd like you all to be educated, rational adults, we would. That'll be fifty grand and a lifetime of crippling debt, then. Never mind, to help you pay that off we've got some nice business interests we've made friends with who are looking for cheap graduate talent to grind to torpid dust on the greasy pole of corporate bullshit mixed metaphors”. Thank you very much Vince Cable, you two-faced, back-stabbing, soulless, turncoat whose yellow tie and yellow belly are the only things that differentiate you from a right-wing, neo-con, money-grabbing Tory moron fuck.

Come and see the country where the government would rather spend £17 million on a four-week advertising fest to distract the populous from a right royal buttfucking than spend the money on good schools and clean hospitals and anti-Top Gear missiles.

Come and see England. We might not be as corrupt, backward, sinister, avaricious and tyrannical as Russia, but we're trying really hard.

PS. Should you be looking for somewhere different to Russia, we'll need a regime change. Quickest way to achieve this is to make the Queen all dead and stuff, dissolve the parliament, and start again. But I guess the Russians beat us to that one, too.